Members

On this page some of our members introduce themselves.

Anne Berger works as a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. Her Australian Shepard Fine is trained to detect hedgehogs and assists in the long-term project “hedgehogs in Berlin”.

Catriona Blum-Rerat is a freelancer at the LUPUS Institute for wolf monitoring and research in Germany. Her dog Isla assists as a service dog in the detection of wolf scats.

Felix Böcker works for the FVA in Baden-Württemberg and at the LUPUS Institute. He is involved in lynx and wolf monitoring and is currently taking courses for becoming a dog trainer. His dog helps him to detect signs of these predators.

Nathalie Espuno is a research engineer with the French national Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). She’s based at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE) in Montpellier, France. She is developing the use of canine scent detection at CNRS, to help researchers in ecology and conservation acquire scientific data on wildlife and plant species that are challenging to monitor using traditional methods. Her border collie is currently training or working on the Crau plain grasshopper, ocellated lizard, European pond turtle and Lanza salamander. Future work will likely include river otter and wolf.

Petra Friedl is from Freiburg. Her Golden Retriever Karo is currently in training.

Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth works for the Department of Conservation at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig. With the help of her dogs Bagheera and Zammy, she is responsible for the monitoring of otters

Cristine Günther is an expert in wildlife management at the FVA in Baden-Württemberg. Her Basenji Djemba is trained to help in wolf monitoring.

Michaela Hares is a full-time dog trainer at the Tierakademie Scheuerhof with focus on nose work and training the trainer. Furthermore, she is an educator with a focus on animal-assisted pedagogy. Her two dogs are trained to detect cows on heat, staphylococci in milk samples and bed bugs.

Laura Hollerbach has been working with wildlife detection dogs since 2011 and manages the search dog project of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung. She is doing her PhD on the use of search dogs for monitoring and species protection. Her service dog Maple is trained to find the remains of wolf, lynx and wildcat.

Denise Karp is a wildlife and behavioral biologist and a doctoral student at the University of Zurich. As part of this work, she uses her dog Django to track down young hare. In addition, Django helps to monitor the natural return of the otter in Switzerland.

Jacqueline Koerfer has a TOP-Trainer Degree, specializing in nose work from Tierakademie Scheuerhof. Her 4 Lagotti enthusiastically search for truffles and staphylococci. They are currently engaged in a nationwide project on cataloguing different types of truffles. Her latest projects are the detection of fawns to prevent them from being killed by harvesters and the indication of mice and rats in houses.

Katja Krauß sees herself as a coach for canines and their humans. She has been running her own GREH dog school in Berlin since 1996 and has been training detection dogs (humans, mold, ragweed, lung cancer, etc.) since 1988.

Jelena Mausbach is a PhD-student in Biology (ETH Zurich) and certified dog behavioural counsellor. Together with her Labrador Retriever Eske, she is engaged in a pilot-study for bat-roost-monitoring for the bat conservation trust, Zurich and University of Freiburg. In addition, Eske helps to monitor the natural return of the otter in Switzerland (Artenspürhunde Schweiz and Pro lutra).

Simone Müller is a dog trainer with a focus on nose work. She trains her Australian Shepherd Nanook to detect invasive plants, such as ragweed. Holding a degree in English, she is also responsible for interpreting and translating.

Jennifer Poier works as a landscape ecologist for the office of Dr. Marc Reichenbach- Ecology in research and planning. Her dog Grimmar is able to detect various species (wood pathogens, svk-certified).

Carolin Scholz works as a PhD student at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin. Together with her research service dog Lahja she is involved in a project on the ecology of foxes in Brandenburg.

Kinga Stępniak is student in Warsaw University of Life Sciences. She is also a member of Association of Nature “WOLF” and Polish Ethological Society. She is involved in research about scent marking in wolves. Her dogs (Tapas and Fuksa) in future will help her to detect wolves scats.

Julia Taubmann is a phd student at Freiburg University and FVA BW in a project about capercaillie and wind energy. She is currently improving her skills in professional detection dog work. Her dogs help her to find bats, grouses and woodcocks.

Nora Wuttke is a freelance biologist and environmental educator from Mölln (Schleswig-Holstein). Her dog Ambra helps to detect hazel dormouse nests and is in training to detect bat-carcasses.